She eased forward, pausing at every turn to steal glances around corners, the blue tinge growing stronger, dominant, until the stairwell took on an underwater air. And then it was ahead of her, no dragon or mermaid-dog, but…goo.
Wall to wall electric blue jelly. It completely blocked the flight of stairs below her, every gap sealed with luminous glop. There was no visible reaction to her approach, no tentacles lifting from the surface or sudden pulsing, just a steadily glowing barrier.
The fight with the Rover had taught Madeleine enough to not simply try to power her way through it. A very cautious finger punch suggested that it would absorb energy in much the same way the Rover had. A light tap with her shield nearly bounced her into the wall. The goo had defences.
Gritting her teeth, Madeleine considered the problem, then climbed back up to the nearest kitchen and returned with a jug of hot water and a knife. The hot water produced no response, while the knife…
The goo’s shield punch threw her up the stairwell. Rapid shielding bounced her straight back down to ricochet again off the glowing barrier, and only frantic easing of her shield prevented madcap ping-ponging. She collapsed on the landing above the goo and lay shaking, trying not to let her head fill with imagined injuries, only to have them replaced by guesses as to what was happening to Noi, to Emily, while she failed to get down a flight of stairs. What were the Moths doing with their stolen Musketeers?
Taking deep breaths to calm herself, Madeleine began to reassemble her fragmented determination, to force herself look at the moment as an achievement. Easing shields to control ricochet had been something they’d only begun to explore during their combat practice sessions. Watching the possessed Blues fight had made clear the Moths' ability to control much of the shield bouncing, and the Musketeers had been attempting to modulate the intensity of the shielding to cushion an impact rather than rebound. Madeleine had struggled to make any progress. She could manifest the shielding on just one side rather than all around her, which meant she no longer paralysed herself when swiping to shield-punch, but her skill level was a rough equivalent of doing embroidery while wearing gauntlets.
Step B was obviously shield practice.
Twenty-four hours later, Madeleine’s plans and ambitions had contracted to a singular focus: food.
The Moths had not come to feed her. It didn’t make a great deal of sense, since if they’d wanted to kill her there would be no need to go to the time and effort to clear out two entire restaurants, including cleaning away any plates and glasses in use on the day of the Spire’s arrival. It would have taken a team of people – Greens most likely – to have so thoroughly removed everything edible.
Madeleine’s hunt had so far won her a tomato sauce squeeze packet. She scanned the compact, curving kitchen, searching for missed possibilities, her gaze settling on an industrial-sized toaster. A quick examination located a sliding crumb tray, specked and dotted with charred bounty. Madeleine shook everything loose into the palm of her hand, licked that clean, then began dotting crumbs with a finger which trembled.
All but black scrapings remained when, disgusted, she threw down the tray and dashed out of the kitchen. She did not want to be this. What would come next? Rats? But, no, all the warm-blooded animals in the region had been finished off by the dust. It would be cockroaches.
Pounding up the stairs to the third level, she ran along the curve of windows, intent on the grandly mature gesture of throwing herself onto her bed. And stopped so quickly she fell to her hands and knees. On the bar counter a new tray, another carton of milk, three muesli bars.
One part of Madeleine was incandescently furious. It was a pitiful serving for a Blue. Even before the stain it would have been an inadequate day’s meal, and the idea that this was all she would have to combat stain-fuelled hunger made her want to yell and throw things, left her frightened for what state she’d be in after another day. The rest of her wasted no time on anything but gulping down milk.
Honey-sweetened again, this time with a trace of butterscotch which, even when that sounded a note of caution, was not enough to stop her draining most of the carton before coming up for air. As she gauged the dregs, a sledgehammer of heat hit her squarely, providing a full and unavoidable explanation for the additional flavour. Spiked.
For long moments Madeleine simply stood, breathing deeply as the alcohol surged through her, but then she snatched up the muesli bars and headed around the curve of the floor toward her vastly empty bedroom. An awareness that there had to be a reason to spike the milk filled her with panic. At minimum, when drunk her ability to control her punches and shield would be near non-existent. Already the world had tilted.
Stumbling past her bed, she headed to one of the curtains which divided the circular level into segments, and pulled it all the way to the inner wall. Then she slid to the floor behind it, a makeshift hiding place. Tucking herself in, fumbling with the cloth in hopes of making it appear its fall was uninterrupted, she tried to still her shaking.
It occurred to her that she could have tried to make herself vomit. The alcohol had hit her almost immediately, but expelling most of it would surely lead to a quicker recovery. But then she would be back to licking toasters.
Determinedly she ate one of the muesli bars and drank the rest of the milk, placing her energy needs above the problem of even more alcohol. Should she fight, when the Moths came? Shields would be too risky, punches more a question of how much she was willing to damage her eyrie prison. She might get lucky and hurt them, but lashing out wildly would not get her friends back. Unless she was on the verge of being completely lost, she would have to restrain herself, try to learn more.
The tower felt like it was swaying.
Fingers tangled in her hair, hauling her from behind the curtain. Jolted from a doze, Madeleine cried out in pain, twisting to see her attacker. Gavin. Or, rather, the Core of the Five of the Ul-naa.
She tried pulling away, but her hair provided far too good a handhold, and he wrenched it agonisingly, slinging her forward so that she tumbled to the blank expanse of floor by the windows. Head spinning, she found herself face-to-face with an enormous, streamlined muzzle. A dandelion dragon, multi-layered wings fanning slowly, the bulk of it apparently draped over the roof of the main tower turret as it dangled over the side peering in at them.
"In future, you will not hide," said the Moth, and she shifted to face him. "You will drink and you will wait here."
His tone was curtly assured, allowing for no possibility of anything but obedience. He clearly believed he could dictate her behaviour. The words in future lit her attention.
Dizzy, and on the verge of being sick, she refused to cower, attempting a little of Noi’s blunt defiance: "Go to hell."
The Core slapped her. A light, casual backhand as if he were cuffing a misbehaving dog. "There are no choices here."
Face stinging, increasingly angry that this alien so clearly did not consider her a person, Madeleine worked to speak without slurring: "I’m not killing you right now because I liked the boy you’re wearing. But you’re making it very difficult."
It got under his skin, just a little: she could see the suppressed annoyance. Then he straightened, and she gasped as that annoyance hammered down on her: a cascade, a torrent. It hurt, was suffocation with needles, and she collapsed down, a small part of her recognising the sensation, though her brief experiments with Fisher had as much resemblance to this as a brush stroke had to nail gun fire. The third power, turned to an onslaught of prickling anger. She could feel his vicious enjoyment of her reaction, and his triumph, a barrage of gloating elation, increasing as Madeleine tried to make herself as small as possible, to curl into a ball, to find some way to keep him out.